Die cutting of flexible sheet material has been known and used in the past for forming substrates for use as floppy disks for magnetic recording purposes. Typically, conventional apparatus for accomplishing this purpose is extremely complex in construction, requires a large amount of space, is noisy in operation and requires hydraulic or air pressure to close the dies in die-cutting of the material. Moreover, the complexity of such conventional apparatus requires a workman to expend a great amount of time and effort to disassemble the apparatus to gain access to the dies for sharpening or replacement. A large capital equipment expenditure is required when using conventional die-cutting apparatus; thus, economies cannot be realized when using such equipment, thereby keeping the production costs of such disks relatively high.
Because of the foregoing drawbacks, a need exists for improvements in apparatus and a method of die-cutting such disks to minimize their production while assuring high reliability of the die-cutting apparatus. The present invention satisfies this particular need.